More than 25,000 security breaches — an average of about seven per day — have occurred at U.S. airports since November 2001, according to newly released Department of Homeland Security documents.

More than 14,000 were people entering “limited-access” areas by going through airport doors or passageways without permission, or unauthorized people going from airport buildings to planes, according to the documents.

Hey, looks like stripping 90-year-old grannies wearing diapers in wheel chairs and six-year-old blonde kids–all while Mohammed and Fatmeh are laughin’ their way to the runway untouched–is workin’ out real good, right?

The documents, obtained in advance by USA TODAY, were submitted to a House subcommittee on homeland security Wednesday. The documents don’t provide details about the security breaches or whether any could have led to potential attacks on planes or passengers.

The total number of infractions is small when compared with the large volume of traffic at the USA’s 450 major airports, which have served more than 5.5 billion fliers since 2001. But critics say there is still reason to worry.

“It’s clear the airports are not secure,” says Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, chairman of the House Subcommittee on National Security, Homeland Defense and Foreign Operations. “For all the money, time and persistence we have thrown at airport security, it’s a real mess.”

Transportation Security Administration spokesman Nicholas Kimball said the breaches represent a tiny fraction of 1% of the air travelers who used U.S. airports in the past decade. The term “breach” is broadly defined and can mean accidental violations that pose no real danger to the public, he said. . . .

Testifying before a House Oversight and Government Reform subcommittee, the director of aviation at Charlotte Douglas International Airport, T.J. Orr, said the TSA is compromised by a “rigid attitude of arrogance and bureaucracy.” Orr was critical of the lengthy amount of time it takes to get the TSA to engage on something like a security assessment of the airport. . . .

The House subcommittee says it does not have a breakdown by year when the security breaches occurred, but former Federal Aviation Administration security director Billie Vincent says 25,000 security breaches indicates a problem.

“We’re open to penetration if someone decides to penetrate,” he says.

Vincent says, however, that more details are needed, such as what specifically occurred. Until such information is provided, fliers should only “be mildly concerned” about their safety, he says.

In 2006, tests by the TSA showed that security screeners at Los Angeles International Airport and Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport failed to find fake bombs hidden on undercover agents posing as passengers in more than 60% of tests, according to a classified report obtained by USA TODAY.

In 2003, five undercover Department of Homeland Security agents posing as passengers carried weapons undetected through several security checkpoints at Boston’s Logan International Airport.

Documents being introduced at Wednesday’s subcommittee hearing also show:

•6,000 security breaches in which Transportation Security Administration screeners failed to screen, or improperly screened, a passenger or a passenger’s carry-on items.

•2,616 security breaches involving an individual gaining unauthorized access to the “sterile area” at screening checkpoints or an exit lane without submitting to all screening procedures and inspections.

•1,026 incidents when someone gained unauthorized access to a sterile area but was “contained” or “constantly monitored” by airport or security personnel until apprehended.

•1,318 incidents in which someone gained unauthorized access from airport perimeters to aircraft operations or security identification display areas and was under constant surveillance until apprehended. . . .

“It’s absolutely stunning that the vulnerabilities are so wide,” Chaffetz says. “There’s not much to suggest that airports are more secure than years ago. We’ve just been lucky.”

Besides the security-breach data provided to the subcommittee, a Government Accountability Office report released Tuesday reveals other concerns about airport security and TSA oversight.

For example, the GAO says TSA plans to upgrade its explosive-detection devices for screening checked bags but “has not established an upgrade plan or conducted an analysis to determine what type of approach … is likely to be most feasible, efficient or effective.”

The GAO says that because TSA has not yet upgraded the screening devices, many of them “are only capable of detecting certain explosives.”

As I always say, TSA = Tough S— America. Fly at your own risk. Flying while non-Muslim is the scariest experience of them all. For everyone else, it might just be the fastest way to 72 revirginized sharmutahs, with TSA in the piloting the trip.

17 Responses

I think we need to cut the TSA, because it’s a complete waste of tax-payers money. Debbie, I know you know that the TSA originally began a few months after the 9/11/01 attacks and put into law by the Republican congress (a different one than this one today) at that time and former president George W Bush approved it and made it. So the TSA started under the Bush administration, NOT under the Obama administration, but the TSA has gotten worst and more pathetic under Obama these days.

I know the muslim sleeper cells in this country and the islamic terrorist overseas are laughing their buttocks off at us with this TSA policy of TSA employees doing all sorts of pat-downs, fondeling, etc. on people who are boarding the planes to their destination(s)!

Debbie and everybody on this blog, if you scroll down this website and click onto the thread “Muslim kills Muslim” thread, there’s nothing but nasty, defamatory, malicious comments made by dumbass troll(s) calling DS every word under the sun. Oh and guess what, the majority of those posters on that thread are you guess it, “muslims”!

It’s clear to me that some of the muslims who post here on this blog every now-and-then happen to be the most irrational people I’ve ever debated with on this blog or any blog on the internet. Hell, even Norman Blitzer (leftist) & Pete Bone (Centrist) gets more respect than those loser trolls who’s flaming that thread. Forgive me for changing the subject a little folks.

I’m sure those of us whom were NOT well-seasoned Conservatives after 9/11 thought that the TSA would only help us. Now we know that through their heinous and stupidly intrusive actions that they are a menace, they are trying to demoralize us by their unconstitutional molesting and their failure to profile scary and hairy Moooooooslim males who fall between the age of 18-40. MaObama and his big gubmint minions are purposely trying to water down our constitutional rights so they can totally dismantle them.

Sean, I saw those wackos on that thread. They ALWAYS use ad-hominem, their grammar and sentence structure is atrocious and they can NEVER debate the issue (not that they have a leg to stand on) in an intellectual way. Oh, and Pete Bone is HARDLY a centrist. He is a stealth Liberal who plays “hide in plain sight” when he posts here because his point is always blatantly Liberal (obvious to me) but some may be fooled because he tries to be covert about it. I respect Blitzer more because Blitzer (who is a silly Liberal) at least OWNS his dumb point-of-view and ALWAYS takes the (stupid) Liberal side…but never hides, lies or obfuscates about it.

I don’t know if you saw it, but Rumsfeld was stopped and searched by the TSA. That says it all right there, if they are that stupid, they need to go. Don’t get me wrong, I think our “great” leaders should all have to endure the mesery that we all have to put up with. But this shows the utter stupidity of our “security”. I really think that Obama and family should have to go through a security check before getting onto Air Force One, makes as much sense as me having to go through the ordeal.

In my opinion the reason behind the TSA’s trampling of our 4th amendment protection against “unreasonable searches, and seizures” of one’s person is to capture contraband and not terrorists. Air travelers are inconvenienced, abused, and not any safer. Are old ladies in wheelchairs and six-year old boys really going to attempt to blow an airplane out of the skies? Do the TSA procedures truly afford us real protection against a committed adversary? I say “no” to both questions. We got lucky with Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab. He was committed and, fortunately, also clumsy.

Gary, a few weeks ago, I was listening to this talk show host, he said that one day he was coming home from Canada boarding an airplane back to Virginia, the TSA employee did a small pat-down on him and told the TSA employee, “hey pal, I mind your fondeling up on me like that, your making me uncomfortable”. A minute later, the TSA employee told the specific talk show host, “sir, I like the deodorant your wearing, it smells nice on you”, and about a minute later, the talk show admitted on his show that he saw a muslim guy wearing a “pro-Osama Bin Laden” bumper sticker T-shirt, and get this, NONE of the TSA employees didn’t do any type of pat-downs, scanning, searches, etc. on that muslim dude!

The TSA under Obama has everything backwards and upside-down, its like their living in “Alice In Wonderland” world, instead of the real world. As I said yesterday, we have to blame George W Bush for starting the TSA, not Obama. And I know Bush didn’t began the TSA personally, but the former Republicans in the house at the time created a legislator bill that started the TSA, put it into law and Bush agreed with it at the time.

We are always open to attacks and the TSA searches are simply window dressing. Nothing has been learned from 9-11, except what I need to know about Islam. You know, I-slam airplanes into buildings.

And in a repeat performance and not having learned a thing, our Air Force is training Afghan women to fly helicopters. We saw what happened to the last batch of Muslims that trained on US soil. Muslims and aircraft are a bad combination.

It is evident even with the more public ones. The demands are becoming more and more audacious, and the increasing lack of even feigned embarrassment over the worst incidents speaks volumes. President Obama can get touchy over fantasies, such as green jobs, but not with real enemies as represented by Islam.

When the TSA and Homeland Security were birthed each agency in the US structure of security apparatus were required to cough up some of their personnel to immediately get these two new agencies off the ground. When announced, my pal in (unnamed agency) cackled and said, and I quote – “Excellent. Now we (unnamed agency) can unload some of our dead weight assh***s onto somebody else”.

Given the background info on virtually all of us, I wonder what it would take for the FBI, or even a newly established arm of the FBI, to issue what might be called Credibility Cards on the basis of some form of live screening background check to flyers. …Clear record–Blue card / Questionable(misdemeanors etc.,)–White Card / Felony–red card (Doesn’t mean they couldn’t fly, but it would give security a leg up.)That way all dirtbags, even Americans, would be under scrutiny without inconveniencing the general citizenry. This is simply a hypothetical posing that might well have been suggested before…Don’t know. But it’s just food for thought, and I’m really hoping that no one uses it to slam the FBI, or come up with hard and fast whys and why-nots (Unless, of course, you give this some thought and have some pursuant information. I, admittedly, do not)
And guys, if you’re being patted down at an airport and you want to avoid some highschool dropout with the IQ of a California State Senator fondling your goodies; after you’ve been selected for a pat-down, point to one of the other TSA guys and say, (within earshot of at least several people), “Oooooo-can I have that cute one over there?” (Be sure that your wrist is limp during this request). I promise you that your mid-torso carry-on luggage won’t be touched; I know–I’ve done it. I would be careful about pulling this little ruse in LAX though. You might get a marriage proposal.